aliceofcecil

[aliceofcecil]

just an artist psa

When artists look at their own work and call it awful, we mostly mean “this is nowhere near what I am capable of producing and I feel like I have let myself down” so please don’t feel bad about your own work when we say this about our own art, it really doesn’t reflect how we see your art.

[aliceofcecil]

Fanart of Mika

[aliceofcecil]

Fanart of Micaiah

[aliceofcecil]

Fanart of Mika

[aliceofcecil]

[aliceofcecil]

Hello Team Galanx.I played the demo and liked it a lot of your work. Art, dubbing, mapping, everything is very well done, congratulations! I am also developing a game (a simple game, just for fun). What advice would you give me?

WARNING: This one’s gonna be long!

First of all, congratulations on starting a game for yourself! Your project looks very promising and the maps are splendid~ Kudos for that!Second, thank you very much for playing our demo. We are glad that you enjoyed it! 

Moving on to your question.Well, developing a game isn’t easy, as many other devs have stated, but it’s really fun when we see things come together and it’s even more worth the work when we get comments like yours, that tell us how much they enjoyed the game.Let’s put the things we would recommend every game dev (including ourselves) to do on a list:1. Draw inspiration from everything around you. Even when you’re taking a break from life and just lazing around, everything can inspire you. We are humans and we posses the ability of imagination, so let’s use it!You’re staring at a blank wall… what could that wall inspire you to do? Maybe… make a protagonist that can see people’s future if he stares into blank walls, sad thing is scientists took him to experiment on him and he lost his eyesight in the process. What now? He got separated from his mother, whom he loves and doesn’t know where she is. Goal: He needs to get his eyesight back and see what happens with his mother. Anything can inspire you, if you just have the right mindset.2. Make a memorable story. You wanna tell something with that game, right? So let’s do it by making a story that will linger in the people’s minds for a long long time! BUT you don’t necessarily need to make lots of characters or conversations, because stories can be told by gestures as well, which brings us to the next point~3. Sprite animations. Sure, some games have no/ few sprite animations and are amazing, but doesn’t it make the whole experience far more lively, if you see that sprite do a thing? It doesn’t even have to be something extraordinary, just closing the eyes, or stretching out a hand to pick something up is enough to make the player get more attached to the character. 

4. Make believable characters. No one likes a flat character, right? But ever so often in the attempt to make the characters more interesting, they either turn into arrogant douches, useless crybabies or invincible war machines. Well, if you have a very good reason as to why they turned out to be like that, then fine with us! That’s cool. Take a look at yourself and the people you know. We all have something that makes us special in some way, but all in all we are considered as “the norm”. So, take “the norm” and throw a few special sprinkles to make the charas how you want them to be. “Rinor is a 26 year old guy.“<- The norm “Rinor is 26 year old guy, who has a tendency to get into fights.” <- Added special sprinkles 

5. Reactions and descriptions. If you have a silent protagonist we can understand that they wouldn’t have much of a reaction when they see something shocking, but honestly, the chara should react according to the event they are witnessing. Something sad happens to the character = Character is sad. Make the player feel it. CG’s usually work best.

Also, when we are in a room and have an explorer’s spirit going on, we want to check all the details and descriptions in there. Please make descriptions of the stuff. Honestly, we know what a chair looks like, so you don’t have to describe it as “A chair.” Tell us more about that chair. Is it old? Does it smell bad? Is it safe to sit on? Descriptions serve as hints for the story too, so use that opportunity, because you wouldn’t always find diaries laying around to tell you about everything now, would you? (There’s nothing wrong with that though.)6. Make individual maps. Excluding facilities such as hospitals or schools, which have the same architectural structure and equipment. Other than that, please make the maps memorable and detailed. Example, you’re visiting the room of a lazy and careless writer. Let’s make it look like it! Pile those clothes up in “the chair” and make a smell of dirty socks waft from the room, the trash bin overflowing with crumbled paper and candy wrappers, dishes undone, books sprawled on the floor, work desk full of unfinished scripts and bed sheets all over the place. Picture it, then make it~Another thing. Be careful with the map size, don’t make them huge and empty. It’s not very appealing and the rooms feel lonely, unused and strange. Throw some shade into the maps. don’t let them be all bare. Is it raining outside? Then make it darker and colorless. Is the moonlight shining on a dark night, from the windows? Then let that be visible! Is a big killer flower awaiting your arrival to squeeze the life out of you? Perfect, let us feel that! 

7. Make different puzzles/ riddles and let them be rewarding. Everybody would think mere fetching is a nasty task if it happens continuously in a game. So it’s always nice if you wrap that fetch quest up nicely with some other stuff in between a.k.a subquesting.You need to get a cake for that hungry security guard that won’t let you pass? Alright, but you’re gonna have to work hard for it. Until you get that cake, you’ll have to push some boxes, solve a short riddle, maybe even steal the cake from a monster that might kill you! The choices are endless~ BUT please make the puzzles logical. Like, okay the place is covered in death traps, but why? Who did this? We need a legit explanation for all this and not just some random puzzles thrown in for the sake of the game being puzzle/horror. We’re okay even with “There lived a paranoid grandfather that covered his house in traps for security purposes”, just give us a reason.8. Have the right music/ atmosphere. We are pretty lucky to have a really talented composer, but others who do not have custom music can always dig into Royalty free music websites and find what works best for them. Music is one of the key aspects that builds up tension and atmosphere within the game, so it should be used with that in mind. Choose carefully.Music can be used to make character appearances more memorable and hammer in your head that as soon as a certain theme appears, that character will as well. Also, reuse music so that the ears become accustomed to it and relate that theme with your game. Example9. Do some foreshadowing. God, what’s nicer than having foreshadowing. and when in the end everything comes together, the player’s heart skips a beat because they fell in love with the game! Build a game that will make “click” in the end and there will be no plot holes. This is the most satisfying product you could offer to anyone. Plot twists are also a great way to leave an impression. 10. Be deep, but in a natural way. You know, the majority of us can agree that The Crooked Man was a pretty deep game, but there’s nothing that felt forced in it, because we gradually got to learn about the character and the circumstances he was in. On the other hand, there are games that try to reason their events too much and end up going a bit too deep, so that even if the pieces come together, in the end we are left with a “it was an ok game” feeling. Amayado bus Stop could be an example for that. (We don’t want to make any game down with this or anything, it was just our personal opinion after playing the game. It was decent.)11. Make a reverse countdown and/or a reward system. This is what we usually do. For example, we want to finish a specific area of the game within 10 days. We write down the things we need for that: which events, characters, maps, dialogues are included and then start counting down from day 10 to 9, 8 etc. This way, we add an artificial deadline to our mind and become more eager to finish things earlier. Stress is one way to drive a person, but it might not be suitable for everyone, so let’s just throw in a reward as well. “If I draw this map today, i can reward myself with some snacks and a movie”, the feeling of accomplishment is there and you enjoy your freetime more!12. Put everything into numbers. How many maps you need, how many characters there will be, how many lines you should write per day etc. If you visualize your work, you don’t feel lost and unmotivated. It’s always nice to see your tasks becoming less and less, right?13. You don’t need to follow the ancestors footsteps. Sure, popular games like Ib, Mad Father, The Crooked Man etc are an inspiration to a huge wave of games nowadays, but you don’t wanna be known as “that game that’s similar to *insert game name here*”, do you? Well if you plan on doing a fangame, that’s okay, but being individual as a game is key to sticking out from the mass. Your game might not be very popular or well noticed at first, but there is a jar of games and yours is somewhere in it. Eventually it will be noticed, and spread around to other people, and if you followed the advice from the previous points, you should have a bombastic game with a story that makes the player love it, adore it, want to share it with everyone and their dog. THEN, oh then’s the time for you to shine, as that person with that particular game that made us so happy/ amazed/ sad that we wanted to replay it again and again just to love it even more.14. Don’t drop the fun along the way! It’s not cool if you get tired and just wanna finish the game for the sake of it. You’re better off with everything taking an eternity and being to your satisfaction, than just slapping some characters and events on and making it a generic game. You’re different, so act like it. You know what you wanna do, so do it! When the fun drops, go and search for it in movies, music, poetry, the park, the mall, another game! It could be hiding anywhere, so get it back and make it stay with you until you finish your game.

We wish every game developer all the best at finishing their games! We hope this advice was helpful to you, to everyone else already working on their projects and to the ones planning to start one. We always get excited when new games/ demos come out and try them right away, so count us in as your silent admirers~ :)Kind Regards,Team Galanx

[aliceofcecil]

[aliceofcecil]

Artist: Eerisedof

Commissioned by: Tabby

Art Gift For: My True Love, Nur

The red-head is my original character, Rosalia Esposti. She is my oldest OC. The bunny girl is my best friend’s character, Dark Reize, whom I like to refer to as ”Darky”. 

[aliceofcecil]

Artist: Eerisedof

Commissioned by: Tabby

Art Gift For: Waifu, Bambi and the Wolf

[aliceofcecil]

Artist: Eerisedof

Commissioned by: Tabby

Art Gift For: Waifu, Bambi and the Wolf

[aliceofcecil]

Shiva Commission for: bielorrusia She posted it here: tumblr post

[aliceofcecil]

Close ups of Bloody Warg for Fayoka to see.

(/) v (\) It's messy and embarrassing.

[aliceofcecil]

An old sketch. Chibi Ib X3

[aliceofcecil]

There we go XD I wanted to add a bit more, but I'll do that next time o v o

[aliceofcecil]

Slowly getting somewhere

[aliceofcecil]

Anu Mummy Card Illustration for casualRO, signed with my in-game name

[aliceofcecil]

Slow progress...